I am a student completing my Master’s of English at the University of Toledo. I am enrolled in a course that is asking us to study how literacy occurs within a specific community. I have chosen the Zappa forum to investigate. (This is actually the second project I’ve done on Zappa related stuff for credit! The last one was an examination of the dada influences on the theatricality of Zappa’s early stage show, especially circa the Garrett days. I perused the forum for information and found it very helpful. So when I had to pick a community I knew where to go.)

I need several volunteers to complete an interview by responding to a few innocuous questions regarding how you read, write, and communicate in this community. They shouldn’t take too much time to respond to and the only other possible requirement is that I ask a few brief follow up questions. I need to interview someone that is a longstanding member of the community (probably like 1,500+ posts or registered for several years) and a relative newcomer (~50-1,000 posts or a member for only a year or so). Hopefully I can get several participants from each category for a workable sample size. I cannot offer you any compensation for your participation, other than my immense gratitude and the knowledge that you helped spread some Zappa love. You will remain anonymous and I can use your username on the forum or a pseudonym of your choice. I do not have any plans to publish the paper so the readership will be minimal if you have any privacy concerns.

Depending on what the general consensus is, I can either post the questions directly on this thread, you could PM me, or you could email me at timothy.duckett@utoledo.edu. Feel free to contact me with any questions, requests for more information, or your interest in participating. Please consider helping out.

I'm posting this here in case this might help persuade anyone else.First of all, I’d like to thank you for helping me out with this project. Don’t feel obligated to respond to all of the questions. I just need to get a sense of how communication happens in this community and the characteristics of the reading and writing that occurs. 1. General Info: Gender; Age; Occupation2. Do you want me to use your user name or an alias? If an alias, feel free to provide one. Have you written under multiple usernames? If so, why?3. If you have created threads, what sort of threads have you created? 4. What do you consider to be good threads? What are the types of threads that illicit a response from you or cause you to engage with them and post?5. What areas of the forum do you use/view/post to the most? Do you primarily look for more information on the life of Zappa, myths and legends, past setlists, recording techniques, etc? 6. What areas of the community are you engaged in beyond Zappa related posts (such as the General Board and user related threads and personal uploads)?7. What are the characteristics of a good post? 8. Do you find the use of acronyms off putting? Are you familiar with all of the acronyms on the site? How do you find out the meaning of an acronym you might not know?9. What are the qualities of a valuable community member? Do you use the friends/foes feature? What does it take for someone to make it on either of those lists for you?10. How do you view the hierarchy of authority on the forum? Are the moderators fair, unobtrusive people? Are they helpful with technical problems? Addressing issues of flagrant posters? 11. Since the forum occurs online, what aspects of technology do you use? Do you have an avatar? Do you post links? Upload files? Has this site helped increase your technological literacy?12. In what contexts do you use the Private Message function?13. What functions do you use the most on the site: general search; look at responses to your posts; read active posts; etc?14. What have you learned as a result of communicating and participating in this forum?15. Have any of the skills or knowledge you’ve gained influence or impact the ways you talk outside of the forum (at work, at home, etc.)?16. Is there anything these questions didn’t cover that you would like to add to help develop the picture of how you interact with this community and what types of discourse occur?

Thank you once again for participating. Feel free to PM me, respond to the thread, or email me to ask me any questions or for elucidation. I am happy to furnish you with papers I’ve written in the past (Zappa related or not) and will keep you in the loop as I complete this project. I may have some follow up questions for you if anything should occur.

_________________Everytime we picked a booger we'd flip it on this one winduh. Every night we'd contribute, 2, 3, 4 boogers. We had to use a putty knife, man, to get them damn things off the winduh. There was some goober ones that weren't even hard...

...16. Is there anything these questions didn’t cover that you would like to add to help develop the picture of how you interact with this community and what types of discourse occur? ...

Hi, there is a lot of forum members like me from all over the world whose 1st language ain't english. i for instance feel the limitations of my skills speaking english all the time. So i only can express my thoughts as far as i am able to say it in english. But i cannot say what i want to as i could in my own language. Maybe this could be of interest for you. There is one very interesting thread in this forum where not english speaking members ask about the meanig of this or that word or phrase. This wouldn't happen if everybody spoke the same language as usual in lots of other forums.

...16. Is there anything these questions didn’t cover that you would like to add to help develop the picture of how you interact with this community and what types of discourse occur? ...

So i only can express my thoughts as far as i am able to say it in english. But i cannot say what i want to as i could in my own language. Maybe this could be of interest for you. There is one very interesting thread in this forum where not english speaking members ask about the meanig of this or that word or phrase.

That would be an interesting aspect to look into further; what is the name/location of that thread?

1. general info: 90% male ranging from 15-65 years old, all occupations2. multiple usernames: not allowed, there's only 2 or 3 members that do it3. created threads: less than ½ a dozen from me; prefer to search/bump old threads4. types of threads that illicit a response: any zappa-related thread, posts by gail, joe, or zappa alumni; or any post from english majors that can't spell

trducket wrote:

I am a student completing my Master’s of English at the University of Toledo ...

4. What do you consider to be good threads? What are the types of threads that illicit a response from you or cause you to engage with them and post?

. . .the elicit crux of the biscuit is there's no (') in masters of illicit english

5. areas of the forum do you use/view/post to the most: zappa albums generally has the most going on from week to week

9. qualities of a valuable community member: can't complain when the check[s] come thrudo you use the friends/foes feature? no

10. are the moderators fair: whaddya mean moderators, no moderators on me ... this is a self-moderating forum; spammers & flagrant dickheads are summarily dealt with

11. since the forum occurs online, what aspects of technology do you use: after 2 major forum crashes since the beginning, most user accounts survived both crashes, some didn't ... switching from yabb to phpbb software dumbed-down available forum technology

12. in what contexts do you use the private message function: very little, there's a 50 message limit, fills up fast

13. what functions do you use the most on the site: finding info about the latest zappa albums

14. learned as a result of communicating & participating in this forum: 20 minutes of music fits on one lp side

15. skills or knowledge you’ve gained influence or impact the ways you talk outside of the forum: nobody on the outside gives a fuck about zappa

15. skills or knowledge you’ve gained influence or impact the ways you talk outside of the forum: nobody on the outside gives a fuck about zappa

Man, too fucking true. Where I live, trying to talk to anyone about FZ (music fan or otherwise), I might as well be talking to a goddamn brick wall. Of the few around that know of him, less like him. And of those few, less like him beyond "Bobby Brown" and "He's So Gay"

_________________Oh No! I don't believe it...You say that you think you know the meaning of love...

I once mentioned FZ to my soon to be sister inlaw/latterly ex sister inlaw.....her only point of reference to FZ was Dynamo Hummmmm, I was instantly banned from her house! due to the "fithy and depraved lyrics" It was about two years after we were married that the ban was recinded.....I took great pleasure whistling the tune whenever she was around, and constantly played FZ whenever she deemed us worthy of a visit......30 years later and she still hates me

I once mentioned FZ to my soon to be sister inlaw/latterly ex sister inlaw.....her only point of reference to FZ was Dynamo Hummmmm, I was instantly banned from her house! due to the "fithy and depraved lyrics" It was about two years after we were married that the ban was recinded.....I took great pleasure whistling the tune whenever she was around, and constantly played FZ whenever she deemed us worthy of a visit......30 years later and she still hates me

I once mentioned FZ to my soon to be sister inlaw/latterly ex sister inlaw.....her only point of reference to FZ was Dynamo Hummmmm, I was instantly banned from her house! due to the "fithy and depraved lyrics" It was about two years after we were married that the ban was recinded.....I took great pleasure whistling the tune whenever she was around, and constantly played FZ whenever she deemed us worthy of a visit......30 years later and she still hates me

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